Thermal and Vibrational Analysis of Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger

Heat exchangers are devices used to transfer heat between two or more fluid streams at different temperatures. A very serious problem in the mechanical design of heat exchangers is flow induced vibration of the tubes. In this paper a simplified approach to optimize the design of Shell Tube Heat Exchanger [STHE] by flow induced vibration analysis [FVA] is presented. The vibration analysis of STHE helps in achieving optimization in design by prevention of tube failure caused due to flow induced vibration. The main reason for tube failure due to flow induced vibration is increased size of STHE. It is found that in case of increased size of STHE, the surface area and number of tubes increases, thus the understanding and analysis of vibration becomes a very difficult task. Again it is found that flow induced vibration analysis is considered as an integral part of mechanical & thermal design of STHE. The detailed design and analysis work was carried out at Precision equipments (Chennai) Pvt.Ltd.